


Waiting on Her Own

by InterstellarVagabond



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Starvation, hajime/mikan implied but can be seen as gen, junko/mikan shown but not endorsed!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23519104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond
Summary: Hajime has his alter ego program waking up his friends, and he can see each one of them making progress towards coming back to life. All of them but one.Mikan seems to be refusing to wake up, so he enters the Neo World Program one more time to take a peek inside her head and see what's keeping her there. He finds a bit more pain than he expected.
Relationships: Enoshima Junko/Tsumiki Mikan, Hinata Hajime/Tsumiki Mikan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 111





	Waiting on Her Own

**Author's Note:**

> yes this happened cause I was listening to the Steven Universe movie soundtrack okay

“You really sure you wanna try this, bro?” Kazuichi asked. “We could try again with the alter ego program.”

“No. I think she’s waited long enough.” Hajime looked down at the pod with a frown.

They were waking their friends, and it was working. Even the ones who hadn’t woken yet had shown active brainwaves, they were fighting. All of them, except for one.

Mikan Tsumiki.

“If you get stuck in the matrix I want it noted I was against this,” Kazuichi sighed, taking a cord from Mikan’s pod and plugging it into the one right next to it. “Or like, if you pop out of that thing with all your progress gone, all Kamukura-y, don’t kill me. Alright? I’ll haunt you so hard,” he said warningly, with what Hajime guessed he thought was a spooky glare.

“Duly noted,” he sighed, climbing into the pod and laying back. 

Kazuichi walked over and looked down at him, his finger hovering over the button to close the hatch. He hesitated a moment. 

“Hajime. Seriously. Both of you come home safe,” he said.

“Aw, you’re worried about me, how cute,” Hajime teased. “Should I tell Sonia and Gundham they have competition?”

“You know what, actually, fuck you,” Kazuichi replied, pressing the button. 

Hajime chuckled to himself as he closed his eyes and waited for the pod to do its work. It didn’t take long, and though he wasn’t himself when this happened the first time he still felt a sense of familiarity in how he started to drift to sleep like he was being put under for surgery. 

Then it all went black.

  
  


Hajime woke with a gasping breath, heart pounding. 

His body was so startled that it took him a moment to remember he didn’t actually have a body here, wherever here was. 

Here looked like an abandoned hospital.

“Of course…” Hajime groaned. “She’d be somewhere creepy, and personally unsettling for me.”

He headed inside, eyeing the scenery around him. It was clear this was during the Tragedy. The place had been raided for medical supplies and drugs, there were bloodstains everywhere. He passed a few beds with restraints, some of those restraints still with limbs in them, and he felt his stomach twist. 

“Calm down, Hinata,” he told himself. “This isn’t about you.”

A few minutes must have passed before he found her.

“Mikan?” He called out, running towards her. She was standing in a large empty room, the ceiling broken open to the stars, no doubt stepped on by some large Monokuma robot. She had her hands clasped to her chest, her chin tucked down against them, and she was smiling softly.

She also looked exactly the way she did when she was one of the Ultimate Despairs.

“Mikan,” he repeated, wondering if she’d heard him.

“Hajime?” she startled, taking an unsteady step back. “... Izuru?”

“... long story,” Hajime said tensely. “How much of it do you remember?”

“... you’re trying to w-wake me up,” she guessed, staring up at the sky.

“Yeah.” His shoulders relaxed, this might be easy. 

Or, maybe he’d just jinxed it.

“You should leave.”

“What?”

“Y-you should leave, Hajime,” she said. “I’m staying.”

“Mikan, your body is still alive in the real world, but it will die if you don’t wake up,” Hajime said. “Come with me.”

“I don’t care.” she fidgeted with her hands. “S-she told me to stay.”

“She?” Hajime felt a cold wash over him. 

“She told me to stay here, the last time I saw her,” she sighed, sounding somehow lovestruck and disillusioned. “I-it’s all I’m good for anymore, obeying.”

“... Mikan, can you tell me what happened?” he asked, taking a step closer.

“W-we’re in my mind, right?” she asked, eyes widening a little. “I-I could probably show you.”

She held out a bandaged hand and the scene appeared before him.

His heart dropped.

Kamukura was there. 

So was Junko, and Mukuro, and of course Mikan. She was hanging off Junko’s arm happily, devotedly ignoring Junko’s attempts to shake her off as she left with Izuru and her sister. 

“Ugh, would you two give me a second?” she said, turning to glare at Mikan. 

Izuru shrugged, and Hajime hated every inch of him for being bored by this obvious abuse. He watched as Izuru and Mukuro left, leaving Junko and Mikan alone.

“... hey, you,” Junko said in a sugar sweet voice, taking Mikan’s chin in her hand. “Can you do something for me?”

“Anything,” Mikan promised breathlessly.

“It’s very important you feel this despair,” Junko said. “I want you to feel exactly as I do, isn’t that exciting?”

Mikan nodded enthusiastically. 

“Here’s what you’re going to do.” Junko tapped her nose with one manicured finger, smiling like she was flirting innocently. “Stand right here. Right here in your little… kingdom of pain, and don’t move until I come back.”

“That’s all?” Mikan sounded disappointed.

“Oh, but won’t it hurt standing here for days and days without food or water? Aching for my return?” Junko purred, mussing her hair. “Besides, dumbass, I told you to. Do you need any other reason?”

“N-no! I don’t!” Mikan said.

Hajime could see the present Mikan clutching at her arm, watching the scene with pained eyes. 

“Good girl,” Junko praised her. “Remember, not an inch! Not until you see me again.”

Then she turned and walked away, not even looking back or waving. 

Mikan watched her go, wiggling excitedly, no doubt at the thought of the despair that would come from this. 

Hajime watched as time picked up speed, as days passed and Mikan grew thin and worn and pale. As her knees buckled, as she tried day after day to keep from moving, sometimes dozing off and scolding herself with screams and screeches and fingers tangled in her hair once she woke up.

He watched as she collapsed, breathing weakly, and how by chance alone the sound drew Makoto Naegi and his team near. 

“Get a doctor!” Makoto shouted, checking her pulse. 

“They moved me…” she sighed. “I was furious when I woke up, and then when I heard she’d died…” she tangled her hands in her hair. “That’s the only reason she didn’t come back! She would have come back! She couldn’t! Because he killed her and he made me move!” she sounded frantic, breathing erratic. 

Hajime could barely watch, but he made himself.

“Mikan, she was never going to come back.”

“She loved me,” Mikan said, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“Come on, even I can tell you’re just trying to convince yourself of that,” Hajime said, and when she choked on a sob he bit his lip.

_ Great. I should have sent someone with better bedside manner. _

“What I’m saying is…” he sighed. “Mikan, you deserve a love that wants you to thrive, not hurt. Love shouldn’t have to hurt.”

“Everything hurts,” she huffed. 

“Yeah, I won’t argue with that,” he said. “Things fucking suck. All the time. But you’re a nurse, you know what you do with pain? You treat it.”

She looked up at him curiously, and he extended his hand.

“Maybe you’ll feel this pain forever, or maybe one day it will fade, but either way you’re going to try and treat it, right?” he asked. “You’ve helped so many people heal, I think it’s time you let someone help you heal.”

“I killed so many people t-too,” she reminded him. “I’m a killer. I-if I’m not Junko’s love, then all I-I am is a killer.”

“And I’m a killer who let you get hurt without even feeling anything about it,” Hajime said, glaring down at the floor. “Kazuichi is a killer who smells bad, Sonia is a killer with a pedigree, Mahiru is a killer with freckles, and don’t even get me started on Nagito! We’re all Despair, but we aren’t  _ in _ despair anymore, Mikan. We have a future, and I want you to be there to see it.”

“Y-you  _ want _ me there?” she asked, taking a small step towards him. “You don’t think I’d get in the way?”

“I want you there,” he promised. “And I won’t let you be alone, not unless you want to be and not until you’re ready to be.”

Mikan started to cry again. She scrubbed at her eyes with her fists, and then she ran into Hajime’s arms. 

He made a startled sound at the unexpected hug and how it pushed him back a little. Then he wrapped his arms around her, and hugged her tight.

“I’m so sorry, Mikan,” he said. 

Then he woke up.

  
  


Kazuichi was standing by his pod with a wrench at the ready.

“It’s me, dumbass,” Hajime sighed.

“Prove it! Name three of Hajime’s favorite foods!”

“Do you know my favorite foods?” Hajime asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I-I… maybe. Well…”

Hajime knocked the wrench out of his hand and climbed out of the pod. 

Mikan’s was opening up, and just like the others she was weak and disoriented as she tried to get out. Hajime caught her hand and helped her out and to her feet, letting her lean against him. 

Not everyone woke up calmly, some of them were violent, emotional, some of them self harmed and others just sat and stared. Knowing Mikan he expected something like that but…

She was still hugging him, just like in the simulation. He arms were so weak, the muscles unused for too long, but she just kept hugging him. 

She was crying, pressing her face against his shirt, and he couldn’t have been happier to have snot stains on his clothes.

“... good morning,” he said, hugging her and chuckling.

“G-good morning…” she whimpered.


End file.
